Monkshood

“ Many bishops and priests were little better than the nobles, yet the Church preserved Christian belief and did something to improve morality. Everywhere the monk was the most striking object-lesson, with his austerities, his terror-stricken sense of sinfulness, and conviction of the peril of the world. No martial, grasping bishop, no dissolute and treacherous priest denied that the monk’s was the ideal Christian life; and the laity stood in awe, or expectation, of the wonder-working power of his asceticism. ”

“ People at first turned monks because they felt that such means of holy living as they had been used to did not make them so good as they ought to be, and because they hoped to do better in this new kind of life. But when the monkish life was no longer new, monks neglected its rules, just as those before them had neglected the rules which holy Scripture and the Church had laid down for all Christians. ”

“ Its dreamy asceticism, its gloomy cells, are gone. Its unworldly motives, its stern allegiance to duty, its protest against self-indulgence, its courage and sincerity, will ever constitute the potent energy of true religion. Its ministrations to the broken-hearted, and its loving care of the poor, must ever remain as a shining example of practical Christianity. In the simplicity of the monk's life, in the idea of "brotherhood," in the common life for common ends, a Christian democracy will always find food for reflection. ”

“ And doubtless the average monk, even when well-conducted himself and in a well-conducted monastery, was, like average men of every creed, rank, or occupation, a very common-place person, acting from very mixed and often very questionable motives; and valuing his shaven crown and his sheepskin cloak, his regular hours of prayer and his implicit obedience to his abbot, more highly than he valued the fear and the love of God. ”

“ This view of the outer world is all the monks ever obtain, for, having once taken the vows, they leave the convent no more; and they know little of what goes on in the busy haunts of men, where the passion of life reaches fever heat, save what they gather from the chattering of the throngs of summer idlers. In winter they live in a silent, white world, and the face of a stranger is very rarely seen. ”

“ The successive reforms, Clugny, Carthusians, Cistercians, beginning in poverty and ending in wealth and worldly influence, show what sort of men wore the cowl. The monks were not all alike; some were worldly, some were religious, some were scholars, and some were merely indolent. The monastery was a home for the scholar, a refuge for the disconsolate, and an asylum for the disgraced. And a monk might often be a man whose sensibilities, instead of being dull, were more sharply awake than our own to-day. ”

“ The monks were the fiercest champions of orthodoxy, and the intellectual giants of that age, like Jerome and St. Augustine, were in their ranks. The monk rather than the priest was the apostle of the Middle Ages who taught men and nations the simple Christian life of the Gospel. In monasticism were developed the germs of many humanitarian institutions through which Christianity expressed itself in a most practical manner. The monastery offered a home to the poor and unfortunate, and gave hope and refuge to both the religious invalid, who was sick of the world, and to the religious fanatic. ”

“ We must not be blind to the serious errors of monkery; but we are bound also to own that God was pleased to make it the means of great good. The monks did much for the conversion of the heathen, and when the ages of darkness came on, after the overthrow of the Roman empire in the West, they rendered inestimable service in preserving the knowledge of learning and religion, which, but for them, might have utterly perished from the earth. ”

“ In every village and town—nearly every man has been a monk at one time or another—it is honoured alike by all; it is kept in the straight way, not only from the inherent righteousness of its teaching, but from the determination of the people to allow no stain to rest upon what they consider as their 'great glory.' This whole monkhood is founded on freedom. ”

“ Nor can it be denied, indeed, that the monks have taught that, by their vows and observances, they were justified, and merited forgiveness of sins, yea, they invented still greater absurdities, saying that they could give others a share in their works. If any one should be inclined to enlarge on these things with evil intent, how many things could he bring together whereof even the monks are now ashamed! Over and above this, they persuaded men that services of man's making were a state of Christian perfection. And is not this assigning justification to works? ”

“ The bishop who was numbered amongst a feudal baronage and entertained a lax nobility at his palace was little likely to be shocked at priests convicted of ignorance or immorality, or to spend his time in trying to reform their habits.
It was, then, not only in horror of the world, but in reproach of the Church herself that the monk turned to the idea of separation from man and communion with God. In the earliest days of monasticism each hermit followed his special theory of prayer and self-discipline ”

“ Perhaps they always will be. The wealthy monk falls a prey to pride and arrogance; he becomes luxurious in his habits, and lazy in the performance of duty. Vice creeps in and his moral ruin is complete. The transformation in the character of the monk is accompanied by a change in public opinion. The monk is now an eyesore; his splendid buildings are viewed with envy by some, with shame by others. Then arise the vehement cries for the destruction of his palatial cloister, and the heroic efforts of the remnant that abide faithful to reform the institution. ”

“ What a scandal is it for them to see the faith preached by fifteen or twenty monks who are poor, despised, miser­ably clad, and reduced to begging their bread, while the crowd of so-called Christians living in opulence, arrayed in silks, mounted on their horses, inspires respect, sub­mission, and fear everywhere, and acts in defiance of the law of God and the teachings of His ministers! ”

“ Then the monk resumed: “If thy intention is to perform that which thou hast promised, I implore Jesus Christ to direct thy steps, and grant thee the victory; but if the enterprise thou hast commenced is only to turn to the shame and misfortunes of Christians, if thou art not, with the help of God, determined to finish it, if thou hast deceived the holy Catholic Church, divine justice will fall heavily on thy family and on thy kingdom, and the blood which the news of thy expedition has caused to flow will rise up against thee.” ”

“ One cannot conceive a married monk, nor one in the full enjoyment of his worldly fortune, nor one without a superior, except where he lives altogether alone with God, following His inspirations; and even then the bishop of the locality is always recognised by the Church as the Superior, whom he is bound to obey.
With these essential means of perfection were also combined silence, prayer and labour, whether manual or mental. Idleness is unknown to the monastic state; the monk should be always doing something pleasing to God. ”

“ Thereupon that poor devil, having no one to love, and being unable to do anything for his unhappy country, began to wonder what was going to become of him. His heart, still ardent and youthful, turned toward religion, and being of the opinion that an honest monk, thoroughly imbued with the ideas of the Bible, might do a good work, preach virtue to the powerful, give instruction and assistance to the poor and the ignorant, he assumed the frock of a Capuchin, received the lesser orders, and retired to this convent. ”

“ The monks are not totally abolished, the government having the grace to await the natural extinction of the half-dozen old brothers who remain, and who shuffle doggedly about the cloisters, looking, with their white robes and their pale blank old faces, quite anticipatory ghosts of their future selves. ”

“ The decrees of councils, the denunciations of popes and high ecclesiastical dignitaries, the satires of literature, the testimony of chroniclers and the formation of reformatory orders, constitute a body of irrefragable evidence proving that the lowest level of sensuality, superstition and ignorance had been reached. The monks and friars lost whatever vigor and piety they ever possessed.
It is again evident that a monk cannot serve God and mammon. Success ruins him. Wealth and popular favor change his character. ”

“ For very many become monks not on account of the Gospel but on account of sumptuous living and idleness, who find the most ample riches instead of slender patrimonies. But as the entire subject of monasticism is full of shams, so, by a false pretext they quote testimonies of Scripture, and as a consequence they sin doubly, i.e., they deceive men, and that, too, under the pretext of the divine name. ”

“ The monasteries had to fall if England was to be saved from the horrors of civil war, if the hand of the pope was to remain uplifted from her, if the insecure gains of the Reformation were to become established and glorious achievements; if, in fact, all those benefits accompanying human progress were to become the heritage of succeeding ages.
Whatever benefits the monks had conferred upon mankind, and these were neither few nor slight, they had become fetters on the advancement of freedom, education and true religion. ”

“ It is nevertheless true that the monks were the most unpopular class of all, and that they were reckoned a living proof of the worthlessness of conventual life, of the whole ecclesiastical organization, of the system of dogma, and of religion altogether, according as men pleased, rightly or wrongly, to draw their conclusions. ”

“ The debased idea of Christianity then prevalent—identifying it with monachism, assuming monachism to be its highest form, and, as the spirit of an age is shown by its use of words, terming the monastic orders religious—this, and the expediency of conciliating the favour of an all-powerful hierarchy, led these fraternities to adopt the monastic organisation, submit to a rule, and assume the cowl, and, while distinguished from the monks by the temporary nature of their vows and dependence on labour for their support, become an intermediate class between the monks and the laity. ”

“ God saith unto thee thus:—If thou lovest Me, O monk, do that which I ask, and do not that which I do not desire. For monks should lead lives wherein they act not in iniquity, and a man should not look upon evil things with his eyes, nor hear with his ears things which are alien to the fear of God, nor utter calumnies with his mouth, nor plunder with his hands; but he should give especially to the poor, and he should not be [unduly] exalted in his mind, and he should not think evil thoughts, neither should he fill his belly. ”

“ The monks had to renounce the world and give all the fruits of their labours to the monastery.
Obedience was regarded as the most meritorious and essential condition of all. Monasticism meant a generous sacrifice of self and implied a surrender of the will to a superior. The monk must obey not only the abbot but also the requests of his brethren. Monks were treated as children grown up. They could not own property—not even the smallest trifles ”

“ Some young monk of enthusiastic disposition, disgusted with the laxity or the vices of his brother monks, flies from the monastery, and betakes himself to an eremitical life in a neighbouring forest or wild mountain valley. Gradually a few men of like earnestness assemble round him. He is at length induced to permit himself to be placed at their head as their abbot, requires his followers to observe strictly the ancient rule, and gives them a few other directions of still stricter life. The new community gradually becomes famous for its virtues; the Pope’s sanction is obtained for it ”

“ Every mode of religious worship which had been practised by the saints, every mysterious doctrine which they believed was fortified by the sanction of Divine revelation, and all the manly virtues, were oppressed by the servile and pusillanimous reign of the monks.”
PHILOSOPHY OF MONKERY.
Dr. Johnson said: “I do not wonder that, where the monastic life is permitted, every order finds votaries and every monastery inhabitants. Men will submit to any rule by which they will be exempted from the tyranny of caprice and of chance. ”

“ But except on the 1st and 15th of every moon and other holidays the novices are put on active service, the monks enjoying an unbroken idleness; they are apparently cursed with an unquenchable thirst, but as a fountain of perennial tea flows for them they are not to be pitied. I suppose you would ask the name of my friend with the neat boots; this would be an arch mistake and violation of good-breeding on your part. When a man shaves his tail and turns monk he cuts himself off from the whole world, including his family, whose name even he no longer bears. ”

“ He transformed monachism by uprooting the stationary monk, delivering him from the bondage of property, and sending him, as a mendicant friar, to be a stranger and sojourner; not in the wilderness, but in the most crowded haunts of men, to console them, and to do them good. ”

“ There was no religious hatred, except towards Turks and Saracens. The monk, in his narrowness and ignorance, may be repulsive to an enlightened age: he was not repulsive to his own, for he was not behind it either in his ideas or in his habits of life. In fact, the more repulsive the monk of the dark ages is to this generation, the more venerated he was by bishops and barons seven hundred years ago ”